Day 134

Relationship. This word has different meanings according to the need of human being. But why is it necessary to make relationship? What’s the importance of relationship in our life? After thinking a lot, I have got few answers to these questions. Well, you can say that I took so much time in searching and thinking about these two questions. You might think that I’m a bit crazy. But you ask the same question to yourself also. I think you will get some answer. Well, I’m going to discuss the answers which I got with you people.

Well any type of relationship is necessary for a human being. A human being can’t stay alone. A human needs company to share his emotions with other human being. According to me, relationship makes life beautiful, comfortable, peaceful and happy. It might sound something abstract to you. But this is the fact which I have observed. We get comfort, peace and happiness when we are with friends, family members and with someone who is dear to us. And if someone is getting all these things then his or her life automatically becomes beautiful. Just test it for few days like I did. You will feel the same as I did.

Day 133

Today is Deepawali. I would like to wish a Prosperous and Happy Deepawali to all my readers.
May this Deepawali brings peace, harmony and prosperity in everyone's life. Once again HAPPY DEEPAWALI to all of you.

Day 132

Sometimes, it really hurts to see the happening around you. I know that for the last fortnight, I was silent. But I was preparing myself. Actually, I was in dilema that whether should I write it or not? Finally, I decided to share this with you people. Well, I'm talking about the corrupt practice of the government employees. Well, I was reeading newspaper couple of weeks back. I was shocked to read an article in which the corrupt practice was reported by the government officials. Those government officials were attached were attached to NREGS. They took the money of the labourers into their own pocket. This is something which is really disgusting. This is the level of honesty in the government employees. They are getting handsome salary from the government. They are well off to take care of their needs and the needs of their families. But still they are taking money of those who are below the poverty line. The people who hardly manage to get two square meals in a day, are been cheated by these corrupt people. There is another case of corruption in another public sector unit. An officer at the post of Engineer in a public sector unit. That person is doing corrupt practice in spite of drawing handsoe salary from the government. Some labourers were called to do some work in an office of a public sector unit. The minimum fixed wage per day for that work is Rs 300. But at the time of payment, that officer gave only Rs 250 to those illiterate labourers. It really provokes the anger that these corrupt practices by those people who are financially strong.
And to some extend, they are been guarded by the departmental proceedings also. They can only be suspended if they are caught. If they are caught. Otherwise they are free to do their corrupt practices. And if they are suspended, then also they are eligible to withdraw half of their salaries. And once they are inducted again then they will get the half salary of their suspension tenure as arrears. What the hell is this? The ministers and leaders only give long speeches to eradicate corruption form our country. But they are not taking any action to eradicate it. Now its time to change the law also. Instead of suspending the corrupt officers when they are caught, they should be terminated from the service and should be put behind the bars. There should be no bail granted to them on any condition. Time has come to take some harsh steps and decisions. Otherwise, the system is not going to change by mere speeches and assurances. It's the time for some action.

Day 131

Well in my last blog I wrote about the corruption. I know that I'll not get any comments from your side. And I doubt that how many of you are ready to change the system. Well, never mind. This time, I'm not having sad feelings for not getting comments as feedbacks. Today, I'm going to write about a scheme been implemented by the Central Government. It's about to uplift the economic condition of those families who are living below the poverty line. Well, I'm talking about National Rural Employment Gurantee Scheme (NREGS). It's a scheme to eradicate poverty from India. A nice move by the Central Government. Well, let's see the every aspect of this scheme. This scheme is implemented to take care of the people, who are under priviledged. But the economic growth of India is going in the tremendous way. Well, if we go by the government figures, then there were 46 per cent of the total population was living below poverty line in 1983. Indeed a very bad figure even after 36 years of independence. Well, the percentage of the people living under poverty line went down to 28 per cent in 2004-05. Personally, I don't consider this figure encouraging. In my personal view, this should be below 5 per cent or even less than that. Hope so, we will achieve that. I think that this was the thought in the minds of the planners while drafting NREGS.
But there are many drawbacks in this plan. On the surface, it looks like a nice scheme where the government is really taking pains for the upliftment of the poor. Under this scheme, 100 days of employment is been guranteed at the wage of Rs 100 per day. This scheme is to benefit those who are unemployed for the major part of the year. Taking one adult from each household in the village, this scheme is engaging them in construction work. Till now 2.6 crore households has been registered in this scheme. But not so much surprisingly only 53 lakh household received the full payment of 100 working days at the rate of Rs 100 per day. I mean to say that only 53 lakh household out of 2.6 crore households have received the full payment of Rs 10,000. What about other people? Where is their money? Then I found that there is no direct transfer of money from the Central Government to the bank account of the labourer who has worked. There are five layers between the Central Government and the labourer though which the money flows. Those five layers are: Central Employment Gurantee Council at Centre, then State Employment Gurantee Council in every State, then District Panchayat at District level, then there is an Intermediate Panchayat at the block level followed by the Gram Panchayat at the village to which the labourer belongs to. Indeed a very long chain of people in between and hence the long chain for money to change hands. Isn't it?
Now lets have a look to the construction work been done. Several ponds were constructed in those areas which have scarcity of rain. What a great planning? Instead of digging wells to solve the water problem, ponds are been constructed. Then the roads were constructed to connect villages or the remote areas to the rest of the country. Nice planning. But the quality of the construction of those roads is so bad that it will be washed away in the first rain itself. Again a nice planning. I find this to be simple wastage of time, money and the human labour. Is there anyone in the Union Cabinet who can rectify these drawbacks? Is Union Finance Minister looking at this? This is simply misutilization of the public money. I remeber that he recommended the Union Council Ministers to travel by economy class in all the airlines to save the public money. Is the misutilization of public money in schemes like NREGS valid? Won't he do anything to stop this? I'm not against the schemes like NREGS. But I advocate for some positive type of construction and proper utilization of public money. I hope that the Planning Commission will look after the drawbacks of NREGS and will sort it out soon before it turns into a fiasco.

Day 130

For the last few days, I wanted to write about something. Actually, I'm reffering to the TV commercial of TATA Tea. Kudos to the people who were behind the conceptualisation and production of that commercial. The new commercial points towards the corruption of government officials and the politicians. And it's true that we, the common people, who are giving bribes to the government officials to get our work done. So, we are the source of the corruption. And ironically, it's we, the common people, who cries that the government officials are corrupt. If we blame the officials then we are also eqaully respnosible. And now the situation is completely out of our hands. Every government officer thinks that it's his birth right to have bribe. Without bribe he can't work. They have created such a scenario that for every small work they need to get their hands greased. And it's not only money. It can be some gift or some other favour for their personal use. I consider them to be an educated beggars. Yes, beggars, who begs for the money everytime a person goes to him for some work. Now we have to change this system. We have to change the system of giving bribe to the government officers. If we pledge that we will not give any bribe then only this disease is going to be cured. I know that you people will think that I'm talkin something abstract. But it can be implemented. Why do we hesitate in refusing to give bribe to the government officials? Just because of the fear that our work will not be done. Corruption is like cancer which is affecting us also. We have to stop it. And why should we give bribe to those people who are drawing good and comfortable salaries from the government. There is no use of giving bribe. We really have to change this system. Instead of giving bribes to the well off people working in the government departments, we can give donations to some charitable tust or any social welfare organisations. We will be helping someone more poor or someone really needs our help. Giving donations to the charitable trust will attract some rebate to us while giving the income tax. So is it not better to help someone who really deserves your help than giving bribe to someone who is well capable of taking care of his family? So stop giving bribe. Let's change this system and really make our country a developed nation.

Day 129

Today the nine day long puja of Goddess Durga begins. I would like to wish all my readers HAPPY NAVRATRI. Every year, Navratri energies me a lot. I'm talking about my personal feelings. In these nine days, we worship nine different forms of Goddess Durga. All the different forms of Goddess Durga is related to one form or another form of energy, wealth, prosperity and knowledge. We worship Goddess Durga to have her blessings for the things which we desire. But in the changing time, we have to think about the changing aspect of the society also. Still in modern age, there are few places in India where female child is been killed. It's ver sad to know those things. There are few states in our country where this inhuman practise is been done. Now its time to change those thoughts. It's necessary now because it's a woman, who gives birth to a new life from her. Without her there will be no life in this world. And we are killing the creator of the world when it's in the mother's womb only. This is really shameful for us. At one hand, we are worshipping a woman to give us strength and prosperity and on the other hand we are killing female infants. These things should be stopped. We can't expect government do all the things and we sit ideally. We also have some duties and responsibilities. We can't run away from them. It's very easy to point out the shortcomings of others but it's very tough to point the fingers towards our self. So we need to change ourselves and to change the society. Now its turn to get ready to fight the social evils. Even Goddess Durga fought the evils and saved the world and gave us a message that we should also fight the evils which are harmful and dangerous for our society. Then only we will be able to say proudly that we are following the path shown to us by Goddess Durga. May Goddess Durga bless the entire world with prosperity, love and peace.

Day 128

In my last post, I wrote about the worry of the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, to curb the expenses of ministers. I think he is not only worried about the expenses of the ministers only but also with the expenses of all departments. This is a nice and appreciable effort been initiated by him. Kudos to him. Even Mrs Sonia Gandhi is travelling by the economy class in the airlines. But as I wrote in my last post, the need to give more emphasis to curb the misuse of the government resources and funds by the government employees. There are many public sector companies where is the misuse is been done because they are not ready to chang according the changing time. There are many companies which affect our daily life like BSNL, Indian Oil etc. These are the profit making units of the central government. But are they making profit in real? Well, let's take example of BSNL. Previously it was under the Department of Post and Telecommunication. But later on it was reformed and was named Bharat Sanchar Nigal Limited. But still today, BSNL is not ready to change itself according to the changing time. And this is due to the officers sitting at top managerial positions. They are on the verge of retirement but still they want to enjoy all the privileges to the full extent. When the BSNL was formed, all the telephone exchanges and telegraph offices were merged together. Now in this technological era, no one goes to the telegraph office to send messages to their near and dear ones, when they have mobiles in their hands. But still BSNL is paying the salaries to the staff who are there in the telegraph section. What is the need of giving salaries to the employees when their resource is not been utilised at all? The pays and pensions giving to the employees of the telegraph section are definitily costing crores of ruppes to the exchequer. But who cares? No one is bothered to utilise such a big work force in some action. The government wants to give them salary and pension but don't want to utilise their human resources. Mr Mukherjee should look into this aspect also. He should think about what to do when the money of the taxpayers is been misutlise like this. And there are many more to come in the coming days from my side. So, please keep reading and commenting on my blog.